World View-JFK: We Shall Pay Any Price, Bear Any Burden for the Success of Liberty

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com:

• Afghanistan security agreement may be close to collapse
• JFK: We shall pay any price, bear any burden for the success of liberty

Afghanistan security agreement may be close to collapse

Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai has apparently torpedoed thesecurity agreement with the U.S. that Secretary of State John Kerryhad been negotiating. This is the agreement that authorizes Americansoldiers to remain in Afghanistan past the official 2014 withdrawal.It was thought that once Afghanistan’s grand assembly, the “LoyaJirga,” approved the security agreement, then Karzai would sign it,and the deal would be complete. But everyone was shocked when Karzaisaid that even after the Loya Jirga approval, the agreement would notbe signed until after the elections of April 5, 2014. 

 Kerry’sspokesman Jen Psaki said: “Failure to conclude [the deal] … would be seen as asignal to the world that Afghanistan is not committed to apartnership with its supporters and that it is willing tojeopardize all of the financial and practical help that has beenoffered.”

The entire Mideast is littered with failed peace deals and betrayedpromises from Kerry and the Barack Obama administration, so unlessKerry can convince Karzai to change his mind, this will be just onemore. AP andReuters

JFK: We shall pay any price, bear any burden for the success of liberty

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President JohnF. Kennedy, a lot of people who evidently don’t have the vaguest cluewhat his principles were are lauding him for their own purposes. Hereare a few paragraphs from his 1961 inaugural address: 

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs ofthat first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time andplace, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed toa new generation of Americans–born in this century, tempered bywar, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancientheritage–and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing ofthose human rights to which this Nation has always been committed,and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. 

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that weshall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, supportany friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival andthe success of liberty. … 

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have beengranted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximumdanger. I do not shrink from this responsibility–I welcome it. Ido not believe that any of us would exchange places with any otherpeople or any other generation. The energy, the faith, thedevotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our countryand all who serve it–and the glow from that fire can truly lightthe world. 

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do foryou–ask what you can do for your country.

People on tv keep asking about JFK’s ideology. Politicians todaycan’t even imagine taking a stand on principle. There’s nothing butideology. 

Kennedy’s address had nothing to do with ideology. It was based onhis life experience. 

He was in the generations that had seen massive famine and genocide.He had seen American soldiers tortured, mutilated and killed on theBataan death march, or shot down like fish in a barrel on the beachesof Normandy. He had seen America and its allies kill millions ofcivilians, women and children, with huge firebombs and nuclearweapons. He had seen human beings at their worst, worse than the mostvicious animals. And he was saying that America must pay any price,bear any burden, meet any hardship to keep it from happening again,because he knew that paying that price was a tiny fraction of the costof not paying it. 

Can you imagine any politician, particularly any Democrat, sayinganything like that today? Politicians were different in 1961 becausethey had survived the worst war in world history. Today’s politiciansthink that the generations that survived that war are simply full ofcrap.  

Today, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, Washington hasturned into a cesspool. Any lie is OK, any law is meaningless,because the Administration is lawless. Financiers who had defraudedmillions of Americans with fraudulent subprime mortgage backedsynthetic securities still appear on CNBC and lie about stockvaluations (price/earnings ratios). 

By the way, according to Friday’s Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500 Price/Earnings index (stockvaluations) on Friday (November 22) morning was 18.85, which is a newrecent high, and astronomical by historic standards, indicating thatstocks are far overpriced, and the stock market bubble is worse thanever.

The Russians and Iranians are providing massive weapons and militarysupport to one of the worst genocidal monsters since World War II,Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Europe is seeing the rise of Nazi groupsthat dominated World War II. And China is massively preparing forpreemptive thermonuclear war with the United States, while America’sarmed forces are cutting back. 

We could use a little of JFK’s attitude about now. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address

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